When a new technology makes people ill, how high does the body count have to be before protectives steps are taken? This disturbing book tells a dark story of hazardous manufacturing, poisonous materials, environmental abuses, political machinations, and economics trumping safety concerns. It explores the century-long history of "fake silk," or cellulose viscose, used to produce such products as rayon textiles and tires, cellophane, and everyday kitchen sponges. Paul Blanc uncovers the grim history of a product that crippled and even served a death sentence to many industry workers while also releasing toxic carbon disulfide into the environment. Viscose, an innovative and lucrative product first introduced in the early twentieth century, quickly became a multinational corporate enterprise. Blanc investigates industry practices from the beginning through two highly profitable world wars, the midcentury export of hazardous manufacturing to developing countries, and the current "greenwashing" of viscose as an eco-friendly product. Deeply researched and boldly presented, this book brings to light an industrial hazard whose egregious history ranks with those of asbestos, lead, and mercury.

Excerpt from Survey of Development and Use of Rayon and Other Synthetic Fibers In a general way most people are aware of these facts, but the information is rarely available in, a form that will enable, one to deter mine with any degree of accuracy the real status of synthetic textile fibers. 0ne, often.hears that there will soon be little use for cotton, 'wool, and silk, and then again that synthetic textiles occupy only a small part, of the textile field and can never displace cotton and wool in the bulk of their uses. Unless the layman knows certain basic'facts relating to textiles in general, and to synthetic fibers in particular, he cannot give proper weight to such conflicting statements. It is the purpose of this report to present information to meet this need. Although it contains little new material, it brings together in.an easily assimilable form the gist of a large amount of widely scattered information, both published and unpublished. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.